Europe’s Best Longboard Waves

With over nine countries all with year round surf, Europe is as diverse for its surf breaks as it is for its food, culture and languages. During the summer months, when the North Atlantic storms drift away and the surf decreases in size, many surfers dust off their longboard or longer, longboard and go in search of those classic summer sessions. After hours of pondering, debating and a lot of dreaming Errant Surf Holidays has listed 8 waves you must surf on a longboard this summer!

1) Starting in the far North. Skaill Bay on the west coast of Orkney is a classic wide, deep bay with a right hand point break on one side and a left hand point break on the other. During the summer months don’t expect much darkness, it doesn’t get dark till about midnight and then it is light again at 5am!

2) Brandon Bay in Ireland is a real Irish gem for catching those long distant ocean swells. This big crescent shaped bay is a mal riders dream on those late sunset surfs before hitting the pub for a cold Guinness.

3) The quite sister to Fistral Bay in Newquay is Crantock Bay, if you get the chance during the peak of the summer for a dawnie or sunset surf you will not be disappointed. Some of the UK’s top longboarders can be seen in force at high and low tide ripping the long peeling waves.

4) Home to many past World Longboard events, the Grande Plage in Biarritz is the home of European longboarding. Perfect mal waves cruise in, peeling along a number of sand banks up and down the beach. A cool place to take the campervan down and hang out. Don’t expect to surf alone during the summer!

5) At the end of an overnight ferry from the UK and you can find yourself in the warm waters of Spain, and better still head 15 minutes East and you will stumble across Somo Beach. This beach also called Loredo, has three miles of sandbanks ideal for longboarding. If that wasn’t enough at the Eastern end of the beach is the right point break Santa Marina. You will also find Errant Surf Holidays La Hosteria de Latas 300m back from the beach.

6) Ribeira d’IIhas may be a handful to pronounce but the long right hand waves are too enticing to just sit and watch. This classic set up in Ericeira, is likened to Bells Beach in Australia! Pack you bags!

7) Fancy going left? Lagido in the Peniche offers a fun; fast take off over rocks before slowing down and rolling towards the beach. The best thing about Lagido, is the fact that if the wind blows onshore, get out walk 300m across the sand spit and surf a super fun beach break which will be offshore, good stuff!

8) Sure everyone knows about Mundaka in Spain and the long, mind bending lefts it offers. But what about Barbate in Southern Spain? This right hand point break is located just south of Cadiz. A fun summer spot, that gets better and better as the winter draws in!

Head out of the office and into the waves, Errant Surf Holidays have the knowledge, locations and expert ground crews to make sure you score top waves this summer. Log on at

www.errantsurf.com say good bye to the British summer and hello Hang Ten!

Errant in Telegraph 2nd Time This Year

The Telegraphs Francisca Kellett and Charles Starmer-Smith take a peak at Errant's range of short weekend surf breaks which are suitable for stag and hen groups. Surfing is a fun activity for anyone regardless of age, sex and fitness levels. Stag and Hen surf weekends have increased in popularity since the late 90's.

Read more here

Summer Surf Video

Summer has arrived to mainland Europe, with great waves breaking along Northern Spain and the South West French coast. Take a look at this sandbank in Loredo, Spain. This sandbank has been producing long, leg bending right hand waves every dya for the last two months!

Check out www.errantsurf.com/loredo_overview.php

RESTRICTION ON USE OF THE ATOL LOGO

The CAA has announced that it's restricting the use of the ‘ATOL protected’ logo to ATOL holders only. If you're acting as an agent for an ATOL holder, you're no longer permitted to display this logo. The restriction means that only ATOL holders will be permitted to use the logo in brochures, online, or in shop windows. The decision follows concerns that unlicensed travel firms using the logo when advertising could potentially mislead consumers into believing that travel arrangements are ATOL protected, when this may not be the case. Travel agents should refer to the CAA Guidance

Rip Curl Board Masters - 6 Spaces Left!

Here is your chance to learn to surf in Newquay, staying at our surf lodge and you will get the chance to watch one of Europe's biggest surf contests at Fistral Beach! We have six spaces left, so contact us soon!

Fistral Beach, Newquay and Watergate Bay are the venues to make your Summer great. The 5 Star World Qualifying is the highlight of the week with the Worlds best surfers competing for over $100,000. The Vans Summer Sessions is the skate equivalent with a total prize purse of $20,000. Elswhere on the Fistral site you can pick up a bargain in the trade village, have a beer or a burger in the large terraced Foster's Beach Bar and come the evening get yourself a ticket to the Beach Sessions which last year showcased The Pigeon Detectives, Enter Shikari, Seasick Steve, The Cuban Brothers to name a few.


There is always a night to suit your tastes!Moving into town and you can check out the Vans Newquay Park Pro, where the best street skaters in the country will battle it out at Wooden Waves Skatepark. Finally for the ultimate end of week party head over to Watergate Bay for the Rip Curl Boardmasters Unleashed Festival. Wait for the final line ups but we are proud to announce Groove Armada Live Act for Friday 8th August. Relentless will also be delivering a huge second stage to the music site set to be headlined by Relentless band, Gallows.

Errant Sign Jack Hughes

Errant Surfing Holidays, have been keeping an eye on young brother of Josh Hughes, Jack for some time now. After an impressive performance in Loredo, Spain, young Jack took home a year contract with Errant Surf Holidays.

His plans for this year are to continue competiting in the UK on the BPSA surf tour and to do as many European events as possible.

Grom Exchange 2008!

As dark clouds and hail rain upon the British Isles, eleven young surfers from Croyde, Newquay and Wales are thankful that they are cruising the waves of Northern Spain this week. This is the second year Errant Surf Holidays has run the Grom Exchange, after last years trip to Lanzarote the groms have been settling into “La Hosteria De Latas” Errant’s latest surf destination.

Since arriving last week, the groms have been put through their paces with beach drills, video coaching, strength training and surfing different surf spots around the Cantabrian coastline. With still a few days left, and the swell set to continue, the groms will be heading out to surf breaks such as Laredo, Sardinero and the home breaks of Loredo.

The idea of the Errant Grom Exchange is to make trips abroad feasible to children under 18, who may not have had the chance to travel overseas. Thanks to funding from local authorities and sponsorship from Errant Ltd, week trips come at a very minimal cost to the children themselves. In turn the children can experience better waves, new landscapes, deal with language barriers and bond with their peers. All essential experiences for them, as they develop into travelling surfers.

Jamie Mather one of the groms from Cornwall comments “We had some great waves on the first day, after being on the ferry from Plymouth overnight we were really pumped to jump straight into the Sea. Chris and Damian drove us back to La Hosteria; from there we got suited up and walked down to the beach to find perfect 2’ waves and no one out! I got to ride my new board, it was nice and warm and all the group was sharing waves” When asked about being in Spain, Jamie continues “The place itself is excellent, we have iPod stations in all the rooms, Playstation, Dreamcast, table football and whole big living space is a cool place to hang out with everyone, we even watched the WCT live streamed on the big projector on the ceiling. There is a big half pipe just down the road that I skated on the second day and meet some local skateboarders. I have been walking around with a piece of paper with Spanish phrases on it, so I was able to practice talking to them. They were really cool and we spent the afternoon skateboarding together.”

Errant team rider and senior grom, Josh Hughes has also been coaching the groms alongside Chris and Damian from Errant. The Welsh under 18 champion is also staying on at La Hosteria to train in warmer waves then back at home. “It is a cool aspect of being sponsored by a travel company, the fact I am able to use the facilities overseas to help me train for European and UK events.

The groms head back to the UK this Thursday, and will be looking forward to surfing on the BPSA tour, and other events.

To register interest in future grom events e-mail here groms@errantsurf.com
For details of La Hosteria in Spain click here http://www.errantsurf.com/loredo_overview.php
To view clips of the 2008 Spring Grom trip go to Errant Surf Holidays YouTube Channel.

Groms Head Off On Green Exchange Scheme

Team ERRANT hits the coast of The Gambia, West Africa

The Gambia is Africa's smallest country and also one of the most under developed.
It's main export of peanuts is slipping and the country is turning it's eyes to tourism. Errant UK manager and professional surfer, Chris Thomson was invited along with colleague Ben Ridding from the R.N.L.I. to suss out the potential of The Gambia as a surfing destination. Here is their story.

We had only been in The Gambia for a couple of hours and here we were facing out to sea with our new friends, Mr Fix It, Bob Marley and Mr Happy Boy, three local Gambia fella's about the same age as us, all keen to see us take our first surf in the mouth of the river Gambia.

Mr Happy Boy, even happier now he knows about surfing. Im pretty sure they had a little wager on who was going to be eaten first. Ben and I had researched this little left-hand point break back in England, thanks to Google Earth, quite possibably a surf travelers dream programme. The waves although small were very long. We jumped into the murky waters, paddling with just our hands.
Chris cheater five over the aligators Before long our nerves eased and we were trading waves, desperately trying to hold in any cliche from the Endless Summer movie.

As night fell we packed up our kit and followed our hosts to our accommodation. Mr Fix It, Bob Marley and Mr Happy Boy are reformed "Bumsters", hassling kids to you and I. The president of The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, had noted the excellent benefits of tourism long before he came to power in 1994. However tourists never seemed to return due to the amount of hassle they received. To straighten this out he gathered up 200 of the worst "Bumsters", educated them and passed them out as Official Tour Guides.

The O.T.G's then went on to give themselves easterly memorable names, making it easier to make friends. With Ben's friendly nature we soon found ourselves with three "friends".
Dodging the sting rays Before long the guy's had cooked up some amazing fish and we were truly glad to see big dishes with our names on them! After dinner, Mr Fix It told us he could take us fishing and we would catch the biggest fish of our lives. This sounded far to good to be true. Little did he know our fishing experience was none.

The next morning broke with the sound of tropical birds, which after a night of trying to catch one mosquito, it was a pleasurable sound. Jumping into the car we headed over to the Denton Bridge and met up with Mr Fix It. After a few failed attempts to start the engine we were off in search of the "Big" fish of the day.

Three hours later and no fish, we were looking pretty desperate. Then out of no where Mr Fix It's line started to pull. At this point you can only imagine the excitement of three grown men all diving for one rod on a very small boat in the middle of The Gambia. The poor fish was cast onto the boat, the Snapper was all but big, but we still claimed it. We all took pictures of us holding the fish, the standard "surf trip on a boat" pose. The sad thing was we didn't catch it and it wasn't worth keeping.

http://www.errantsurf.com/

Surf & Pilates "Amazing Success"

This week sixteen girls from all over Europe took to the waves of Southern Morocco, during the Girls Only Surf & Pilates week. The trip was run by Europe’s number one surf travel company, Errant. Rising each morning to the Saharan sun, the girls took time out before breakfast to work on their Pilates with top London-based Pilates star, Amy Swanson. “The blend between Pilates and surfing is not to be ignored. To thoroughly warm up the spine, using surfing related movement patterns, and learn about body mechanics has proven to be hugely beneficial when taken to the water.”

After a big healthy breakfast, the girls loaded up the vans in search of surf along this bountiful coastline, with world-class waves such as Killer Point, Anka Point and Devils Rock. Returning late in the day to a three course meal, cooked with the freshest ingredients Morocco has to offer.
Ash Howe from Northamptonshire comments “The Pilates sessions were an ideal way to get warmed up before surfing all day. Although Morocco is only a short flight away, the whole trip has felt like a real adventure, because the culture is so different and the surf so good”

On hand to coach the girls was pro-surfer Celine Gerhart from Gul wetsuits. “Celine was a great surf coach, she had a unique way of picking up on the smallest elements to improve my surfing. She really helped me understand where I should be on an unbroken wave and her enthusiasm for the sport is infectious.” commented CJ from Aberdeen.

Joining Celine was top female surf coach Zoey Cotton and professional long boarder Chris Thomson. Both on hand to provide detailed coaching using the latest video techniques.
The holiday was rounded off with a trip to a local Souk, the girls took to the stalls with great gusto, haggling down the prices of all those rugs, clothes and shoes.

Errant surf holidays have more week long trips booked for 2008. Including two week trips in the new luxury surf guesthouse in Loredo, Northern Spain.

Morocco, Tamraght - April 14th 2008
Northern Spain, Loredo - May 17th 2008
Northern Spain, Loredo - October 12th 2008

For more details on all Girls Only Surf & Pilates weeks and all Errant Surf Holidays log on to www.errantsurf.com or call Zoey on 0870 896 52 52.